These women didn't just display their confidence by wearing t-shirts or frilly skirts... These stars modeled swimsuits! This picture proves that any body type can rock a polka dot bikini!
It is important to pay tribute to all body types, especially those of women, because our media spends too much time telling us that we need to slim down to attain a "perfect body." If you google "perfect female body" your results will include:
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| If you can't read the words in tiny print, they mention women and men's ideas of the "perfect female body" |
How many people do you see in your day to day life who look this way?
When you look at these Victoria's Secret models (yes, they're gorgeous, and yes, it's somewhat empowering to feel sexy in your undergarments), you see a minute population! This is the group of long-legged, slim women who happen to be the models of "perfection" in our society. I am glad that our society praises this minority body type and respects the occasional interesting recessive gene traits, but the fact that it has been over-praised has grossly shaped our cultural views. Women feel dissatisfied with they bodies based on our ideas of how women should look. Such a handful of women look this way, yet such a great number of women feel oppressed by these taunting images.
It is important to see people of similar body types, skin tone, gender, and even background because it is truly inspirational to feel like you can connect to one based on their physical appearance. It is sad that we feel the need to judge the outward before the inward, but seeing people who remind us of us makes us bound to love or hate them. When we realize we love them, we feel uplifted and inspired by how much people like us have achieved.
We don't all look the same and we sure as heck won't all achieve the same things in life, but the more we take steps toward modeling like Modcloth, the more we can reshape our society into praising shape, size, skin, and gender.
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| This is one step toward the new perfection |
Yes! I adore Mod Cloth's models. One thing that I also have noticed in almost all the media I watch/see is the lack of dark skinned people in general. Yes, we have come far, we include African American models, or models of darker skin tones than white. However, lighter skin is still preferred by our society, there are hardly any to no successful music artists who are black, black women do not play leading roles in movies or TV. Even Beyonce, who has a very successful career, has a fairly light skin tone. The model shown in the Mod Cloth Ad above is only dark compared to the five white women next to her. We say that racism is over, but the portrayal of dark skinned, black people in media is scarce.
ReplyDeleteYes! I adore Mod Cloth's models. One thing that I also have noticed in almost all the media I watch/see is the lack of dark skinned people in general. Yes, we have come far, we include African American models, or models of darker skin tones than white. However, lighter skin is still preferred by our society, there are hardly any to no successful music artists who are black, black women do not play leading roles in movies or TV. Even Beyonce, who has a very successful career, has a fairly light skin tone. The model shown in the Mod Cloth Ad above is only dark compared to the five white women next to her. We say that racism is over, but the portrayal of dark skinned, black people in media is scarce.
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